The WKU Academic Competition Club will be hosting the first annual WKU Spring Novice Tournament on March 17, 2012. This will be a tournament aimed at academic teams in Kentucky and Tennessee, although we'll welcome any team who wants to play. As a novice tournament, it will be limited to newer players and teams with less experience. The eligibility guidelines are as follows:

1) All middle school teams are eligible2) All high school teams consisting of only freshmen and sophomore players are eligible3) All teams from high schools who have never attended a quizbowl tournament before are eligible, including teams with juniors and seniors4) Teams including juniors and seniors are only eligible if those players have never attended an quizbowl tournament before5) If you have a team that does not meet these guidelines, yet you still feel qualifies as a novice team, please contact us and apply for an exemption

Fee: $70 per team. There will be a $20 discount for bringing a moderator. Because we're offering such a large discount, we prefer you bring a moderator, although providing a scorekeeper will allow you to receive a $10 discount if you are not able to. Every school that attends must bring a buzzer system.

Registration: Please email me or Brian to register for this tournament. We'll need to know how many teams you are bringing and if you are bringing staffers. The field will be capped at 18 teams. We must have confirmation of attendance by March 15th, 2012, or else you will not be allowed to participate. If and when the field is full, additional teams who wish to register will be placed on a waitlist and will be moved into the field if teams drop. Any teams who drop after March 12th are required to pay a $20 drop penalty. Teams are encouraged to pay before the tournament if they wish, please contact us for information on how to do so. We accept cash or checks, and while we will take purchase orders if that is the only way you can pay, we prefer one of the aforementioned methods of payment.

Format: The morning will feature round robin pool play, with teams grouped into 3 pools of 6 teams each. After lunch, teams will be re-bracketed into 3 pools of 6 based on morning performance. An 11th round may be played to determine placement for places 1-4, and trophies will be given to the top 4 teams. Registration will take place from 8:00-8:30 with a coaches meeting at 8:30. Teams need to be at the tournament no later than 8:25 for things to run on time. This tournament will use powers and negs, because it is an NAQT set. We will use NAQT rules, with the exception that we may have untimed (or at the very least longer than 9 minute) halves.

Staffing: If attending teams can bring a competent moderator it will allow us to keep from using anybody who is not qualified to read, as we had to do at some past tournaments. Most schools should have older students who are able to read but not eligible to play, so please get them to come help out. Teams will receive a $20 discount for bringing a moderators, and a $10 discount for bringing scorekeepers. A member of the WKU Academic Competition Club will be appointed Staff Director and will be training all staffers on how to moderate and scorekeep properly from 8:30 until the tournament starts. Any complaints about moderators and/or scorekeepers should be made to this person, who will have the power to relieve staffers of their duties or re-assign them.

This is being moved to March 17th. The original date probably would have worked, but we would have been in the position of hosting two tournaments in three weeks, and this would have been in the middle of the Governor's Cup schedule. The new event should be on a date when there are no local JV or middle school competitions, and no Governor's Cup to prepare for. Ideally, this can be somewhat of a good late season event for younger players who may lose interest during the winter months while they take a backseat to older players.

We will also host a tournament for varsity academic teams on April 21st.

A reminder to teams that this tournament is quickly approaching. Please email me or post here if you are interested in attending this tournament. If there's any solvable issues that are keeping you from attending, let me know as well. Right now we have more teams from Ohio registered than from Kentucky, so step it up Bluegrass State!

I need to hear something from teams if they are coming to this, and I need to hear it soon. We can't tell people to drive from Ohio if there's only going to be 3 teams, none of which is south of the Cincinnati area.

1) Our field is starting to take shape. We have 6 teams registered and I've heard from a few more. Obviously we have plenty of room left for interested teams.

2) I've made a clarification to the eligibility rules. For the purposes of our event, teams who have never competed in a quizbowl tournament before, regardless of how much quick recall experience they have, are allowed to attend. This is an event to bring new teams and players to the quizbowl circuit, and get these teams experience on good, pyramidal questions. While KAAC questions have certainly improved, and I have no idea about the state of questions in most quick recall leagues in Kentucky, the format and usually the questions are quite different. I feel the goals of this event are best served by allowing any team who has never played a tournament on good quizbowl questions to attend, in addition to younger players from more active schools who need more experience.

I would like to thank everyone who attended today's Spring Novice Tournament at WKU. Nine teams from three states competed on NAQT IS-114A, with Dunbar A clearing the field to win the tournament. Dunbar B defeated Campbell County in a game to determine the 2nd place winner. I'd like to thank Dunbar and Tippecanoe for providing staffers, and Shawna, Terence, and Tommy from the WKU team for staffing today as well. I hope everyone enjoyed the tournament and we hope to see you back at WKU events in the future. Full stats can be found here.